


Roots of the Lotus

by Iwvs



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 06:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12075423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwvs/pseuds/Iwvs
Summary: Red Lotus origin story. Zaheer saves P'Li from a life as a child soldier.





	Roots of the Lotus

_Only a fool searches for fire by candlelight._

_Guru Laghima, collected writings_

Zaheer had met Unalaq by chance. The spirit world was more fun than helping with the farm, with better views than his remote mountaintop village, and he'd escaped whenever he could, hiding himself in remote spots so that he could slip away into the colourful, alien place. He'd seen other people in the spirit world before, like Lu Tze, the old lady who liked to sit beneath the trees and ask impossible questions, only smiling when he answered them, or Iroh, who lined spirits up along his table and had tea with them.

He'd thought Unalaq a spirit too at first; a strange, thin boy with outlandish clothes and stormless blue eyes. He'd been napping on the branch of a tree when the prince had burst through the undergrowth, slapping apple bugs away from his long hair.

Noticing that he was being watched, Unalaq had scowled up at him. "What are you doing here?"

Zaheer slid backwards, hanging upside down from the branch by his knees so that he was nose-to-nose with the boy.

"I don't know," Zaheer poked the boy in the chest. "What are  _you_  doing here?"

The boy looked down, shocked. "I'm the son of the chief of the Water Tribe. I go wherever I damn well please."

"Is that so?" Zaheer grinned, folding his arms over his chest. "Well. I'm the son of a fire nation farmer, and nobody's stopped me yet."

"There's no spirit woods in the fire nation." The young prince looked him up and down critically. "How did you get here?"

Zaheer shrugged. "I closed my eyes."

"I don't believe you."

"You don't have to," said Zaheer. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Unalaq looked doubtful. "I guess," he allowed, his blue eyes cautious. "A dragonfly bunny told me there was a river near here. You want to help me find it?"

"You mean the Xi Heng river?" With a grunt of exertion, Zaheer sprung from the branch, flipping himself midair and landing on his feet. "I know where that is."

Years passed, and they were friends.

 _There's a new warlord on your peninsula. Go, observe him. Tell me what you see._  That was the mission Lu Tze gave him, from her seat below the dragonblood trees in Xai Bau's grove, the first indication she had given that she knew who he was in the physical world, or  _where_.

Zaheer found shipwrecks littering the coast around Lord Diao's fort, their hulls rotting on the rocks like blackened ribcages. He swam out to them, waiting for the low tide to crawl onto the jagged rocks that impaled them. They were pirate ships for the most part, judging by the shape of them, shallow-hulled barges that would sit low in the water when fully laden, but that wasn't the most interesting thing about them. Their wood was blackened, as if it had been burnt. When he found a body in a wreck, it was the same way; black, as if it had been immolated, jewelery melted into the flesh. Zaheer turned a shard of burnt hull over in his hands as he pondered what he would tell the old woman. That the new warlord had the power to set the sea aflame? He needed more than that, surely.

He found it as he approached Lord Diao's base from the nearby mountainside, her power like a peal of thunder. He felt it before he heard it, the low vibration that travelled through his core to his sternum; a concussive blast. His first thought was a naval gunship, but the warlord's fleet was nowhere in sight. Then he saw her, down in the grounds of the warlord Lord Diao's fort.

Not a weapon, but a girl, head shaven, arms chained behind her back.

They took her out at dawn, and sometimes dusk, with an eyeless metal helmet over her head, and once they had removed it, they made her blast the rocks behind the fort. When she refused, they would beat her, which the girl accepted with a kind of resignation, laying still on the ground until it was over. It took Zaheer days to find a path down the mountainside not visible from the walls of the fort, but he found one. The hardest part was the area the girl had blasted, full of sharp, broken rocks and burnt undergrowth, but he picked his way through it, until one day he was lying in wait for her as her guards led her out.

"Hey," said Zaheer, once her guards had backed away a little.

The girl looked at him, eyes wide. She was younger than he had thought from a distance; her height had made him think she was his own age. She glanced back at her guards, who yelled something at her. "This is dangerous," she said, not looking at him as she spoke, her voice low. "You shouldn't be here."

Zaheer raised an eyebrow. "Don't worry about me," he said. "I've met Koh the Face Eater. This is nothing."

The girl's lips quirked into a smile. "No you haven't. Koh is an old wives tale."

"He is not," said Zaheer. "And that is exactly the kind of expression that would get your face taken, if he were here right now."

"He can have it," said the girl, a little sadly.

"Why?" said Zaheer, and as if to answer him, she turned away and used her bending.

It was fascinating to watch up close. There was a mark on her forehead, the third eye chakra, as if she were a diagram in a bending manual, and she channeled light through it, focusing it on a point inches from her face before releasing it on a boulder a hundred feet away. Already on the floor, he felt the blast resonate, and he looked up at the girl as small fragments of rock rained around them. "I think you're perfect as you are," he said, sincerely.

The girl made a dismissive sound, but there was a smile on her lips as she continued her practice.

"Unalaq, there's a girl," Zaheer burst into the reading room of Wan Shi Tong's spirit library. The big owl spirit gave him a sharp look, and he stopped himself. "Sorry," he said, bowing deeply to the spirit. He lowered his voice. "There's a girl."

Unalaq looked up from his book, his mouth quirking. "There is? Where?"

"In the physical world. In the fort near my village."

Unalaq looked skeptical. "Are you in love?"

"No!" said Zaheer, scowling. "She's in trouble. I need to rescue her. Help me?"

"I don't know how much help I can be."

"You're a prince, aren't you?"

"Yeah," said Unalaq. "That doesn't mean I can just go around demanding girls from people."

"No," said Zaheer. "But if you visit, Lord Diao will have to host you in his fort, and we can find out where he's keeping her and get her out."

Unalaq pushed a strand of hair from his face. "I suppose it would be good to meet in person."

He went to see the explosion girl the next day, and the day after that, crouching in the dust by the rocks where she usually stood.

"Hey." Zaheer grinned up at her.

"Why did you come back?" She graced him with a scowl before focusing her power at a cluster of rocks a few hundred feet away. "I told you this was dangerous." Her head had been recently shaved, razor scrapes fresh and red against her bare scalp.

"And I told you that this doesn't scare me," said Zaheer.

"Yeah?" she looked over her shoulder, at the guards who were loitering near the walls. "What  _does_  scare you, then?"

"Nothing," Zaheer replied, his face straight.

"Nothing," the girl repeated, shaking her head. She lifted her chin, sighting another target on the range. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

He waited until she was channelling her power. "What's your name?"

Her eyes darted back to him, and she hit the earth below the rock she had been looking at, sending clods of earth flying. "What?"

"Since I'm going to rescue you, I should know your name," said Zaheer.

"Rescue me?" the girl's eyes went back to the firing range, and she adjusted her stance, as well as she could in her heavy chains. "You really are an idiot."

"You don't want rescuing?" Zaheer asked, nodding to her ragged clothing, and the long chain that the fort's guards held.

She looked away from him, flushing. "You really think you can? You might wear a ponytail like a man, but you're just a kid."

The insult stung, but Zaheer bore it. "Try me," he said, calmly.

"Alright. Fine." The girl's eyes flashed. "The bastards here don't call me anything, but my mother called me P'Li."

"P'Li," Zaheer repeated, and it felt sweet in his mouth. "I'm Zaheer."

"You're an idiot, more like." P'Li grinned as she focused her power on one of the stunted trees that grew on the slope, setting it alight.

Zaheer met Unalaq on the rocks of the harbour a half day's walk from the fort. Unalaq steered a lonely, single-sailed boat in from the open ocean, waving his arms as he bent the water beneath it. Zaheer waited as he pulled his boat out of the water, not sure what to expect from the water tribe prince, but once they were face to face, Unalaq pulled him into a fierce hug. Just like in the spirit world, Unalaq's slender frame belied his strength.

"Good to finally meet you, farm boy."

"You too, your highness," Zaheer retorted.

"You want to spar?" Unalaq asked, when they had set up their camp by the beach. "We can finally use our bending against each other."

"I'm not a bender."

Unalaq looked at him a moment, something like pity in his eyes. "But you're so spiritual."

"Not the right kind of spiritual," Zaheer spread his hands. "Believe me, I've tried." How many times had he copied the firebending kata of the soldiers that passed through, only to find his hands produced nothing but empty air?

"We can still spar," Unalaq pressed. "I can use my bending and you can try to fight it."

"That doesn't seem fair."

"Oh, come on," Unalaq scoffed. "How are you ever going to beat someone with bending if you don't practice?" He rolled his eyes. "I'll just use what's in my bottle to start with, how's that sound?"

"Deal," said Zaheer.

In the spirit world, Zaheer had always had the edge on Unalaq; their heights were even and Zaheer's work on the family farm had given him a broader build. It was always a matter of getting Unalaq in a headlock or another pin, and then sitting on him as he squirmed. The physical world was another matter entirely.

Unalaq balled the water between his hands, stretching it to a whip and then a loop, keeping it flowing with movements of his slim, dextrous fingers.

"You ready?" he asked, smirking.

Zaheer cracked his neck. "I look ready?"

"No," said Unalaq, and he began, hitting the ground round Zaheer's feet with the end of his water whip. Zaheer hopped back, his eyes on the water, but Unalaq used his distraction to close the gap between them, grabbing his wrist. Zaheer reversed the hold, twisting the prince's arm, but he'd taken his eyes off the water, and Unalaq made a small gesture with his free hand, snaking it up Zaheer's back and twisting tight round his neck.

Feeling himself go faint, Zaheer tapped out, releasing Unalaq's wrist.

The water tribe prince grinned at him, blue eyes sparkling. "That was awful," he said, dismissing the noose with a casual twirl of his fingers.

Zaheer swallowed air gratefully. "It's my first try." He felt his throat gingerly. Unalaq had squeezed hard enough to cut off his air, but not enough to leave a lasting bruise.

Unalaq clicked his tongue. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you," he said, recalling his water in a ring around his hand. "Again?"

Zaheer nodded, and settled into a fighting stance again, circling round Unalaq, who turned to face him, water spinning in a sphere in his hand.

By the time they slept, collapsing into the bedrolls in their tent, Unalaq had bested Zaheer eighteen times, and Zaheer had bested Unalaq once.

He woke to a faint blue glow, Unalaq bending water over some of the scrapes on his arm.

"What are you doing?"

"Healing," Unalaq glanced at him, his eyes anxious. "It's meant to be a... woman's thing. So don't tell anyone."

"I won't."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." Zaheer sat up, feeling the fresh bruises on his arms and knees. True to his word, Unalaq hadn't hurt him with his bending, but he'd tipped him to the ground more than once. "Do me next?"

"Do I have to?" Unalaq grimaced at his own healing scrape.

"We're pretending I'm your retinue, remember?" Zaheer tilted his head. "What's Lord Diao going to think, if I come in there with a black eye?"

Unalaq sighed, and held out his hand. "If you're really going to be my retainer, you need to get better at fighting."

Zaheer stuck out his arm for Unalaq, and felt the prince's long fingers close over his wrist. "I beat you once."

Unalaq sniffed. "Luck."

"Yeah, yeah." Zaheer smiled, watching Unalaq go to work on his arm. The blue glow of his water was bright, and the feeling as it passed over his skin was one of warmth, travelling from his shoulder and into his injuries. "You're using my chi pathways?" he guessed.

Unalaq nodded. "Yeah. You've got a lot to play with, so it's pretty easy. Some people, you try to heal them, and they're all blocked up." He folded the water around, finding the scrape on Zaheer's elbow, and drawing energy to it. "How's that?"

Zaheer withdrew his arm, spreading his fingers before he grabbed his own shoulder. The scrape was gone, replaced with fresh, smooth skin. "That's amazing," he said.

"Oh, please." Unalaq leaned back, both hands behind his head, but he was smiling. "That's nothing."

Lord Diao's feast hall was stark and cold, the only decorations on the walls the thin tapestries emblazoned with his family name. The fort had been a ruin before the warlord moved in, and he was a man more versed in building warships than castles, so large gaps in the stonework were patched with riveted iron. They rattled like discordant bells when the wind blew, a noise drowned out by the chatter around the table.

Zaheer sat beside Unalaq, the spare water tribe clothes the prince had brought him simultaneously hot and itchy. Sitting either side of the wooden table were Diao's retainers; the ship captains and officers that served under him, all in full Fire Nation regalia. They looked like the painted metal soldiers that the children in the village sometimes played with; their uniforms shiny and their faces scratched. Unalaq sat next to Diao himself, making polite conversation.

"So, where are you from?" the gnarled captain on his other side enquired. "You don't look like water tribe to me."

"A small village, in the earth kingdom," lied Zaheer, smoothly. "You've probably never heard of it."

The man lost interest in him after that.

"It is good to see the water tribes are finally reaching out," Lord Diao spoke to Unalaq in a tone that was almost condescending. "And it's particularly gratifying that you have chosen my lowly peninsula as your first stop, your highness."

Unalaq engaged the warlord in a courtly manner as Zaheer busied himself with eating. To his chargrin, while the villages under his protection were surviving on rice and vegetables, Diao had served them festival food, richly spiced and fried in oil. Did the warlord's table eat like this every night, he wondered as he picked the leg from a soft shelled crab and crunched it.

"Why didn't you warn me about the food?" Unalaq made a face as the warlord's servants escorted them to their rooms.

"What about the food?" Zaheer quirked an eyebrow.

"It's so damn spicy. I feel like my guts are trying to firebend." Unalaq grabbed his stomach.

"Excuse me." Zaheer touched the head servant on the arm. "Could you show his highness and I to the bathrooms?"

"Of course." the servant bowed deeply, leading them down the hallway, and Unalaq bolted into the room, slamming the door behind him. The servant gave Zaheer a wary look before taking his leave.

"Good ruse," Zaheer remarked, his back to the door. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

"Ugh," Unalaq made an unspeakable noise. "It's not a ruse, farmboy."

"Just use your waterbending to heal it off then. Navel chakra," he added, helpfully.

There was a pause. "Anyone ever tell you you're a smartass?"

Zaheer grinned. "Only when I'm right." Too often, his friend forgot that he wasn't the only one who read the books in Wan Shi Tong's library.

Unalaq emerged from the bathroom, looking drawn. "When you come visit me at the pole, I'll show you some real food."

"Nevermind that, we've lost the servants. Let's go find where they're keeping P'Li."

"P'Li?" Unalaq frowned. "She has a name now?"

"She always had a name," said Zaheer, looking around. "If you were Diao, where would you keep a dangerous bender?"

"She's a dangerous bender?" Unalaq gave him a look of wide-eyed incredulity. "Way to leave out all the pertinent information."

Zaheer crossed his arms. "Just answer the question."

The prince gave a sniff. "Fine." He closed his eyes. "I'm a warmongering oaf," he muttered. "And I have a secret weapon-child imprisoned somewhere in this fort." He peered down the stairs. "What's down in the basement here?"

They found her cage easily enough, in the dark damp corridors of the cellars. Long experience from the spirit world meant staying out of the way of the guards was easy, and they stuck to the shadows, Unalaq's waterbending quelling any noise they might have made crossing the shallow puddles that covered the floor.

Zaheer peered in through the grate on her heavy steel door, his eyes adjusting to the dim light within. P'Li was curled in the corner, an eyeless metal mask clamped firmly to her head.

"P'Li!" Zaheer hissed. "P'Li."

She lifted her head on his direction, her voice muffled by the mask. "You actually came?"

"We weren't just going to leave you here."

"We?"

"My friend Unalaq is with me. He's a prince of the northern water tribe."

"A pleasure," Unalaq purred. With a sweep of his arm, he pulled the water from their surroundings over P'Li's door and froze it, the metal distorting and shattering with a resounding crash. Zaheer swore, looking down the darkness of the corridor. There were shouts, and yellow lanternlight flickered against the far wall.

"Get her out of there. I'll hold them off," he said, turning away.

"You and what bending?" Unalaq gave him a worried look as he hurried into P'Li's cell, ice shards hovering above his hand.

"Just trust me," snapped Zaheer, the approaching guards filling his vision, their lacquer armour shining like black beetle shells.

"Stop!" they called, and Zaheer raised his hands.

"I can explain," he said slowly. "This is a misunderstanding." The narrow corridor put him at a severe disadvantage, but he was still dressed in water tribe blue, and the guards didn't know he wasn't a bender. With a low sweep of his leg, he kicked up water, a move he had seen Unalaq perform, showering the guards with spray. They reacted as he had expected, putting up fire shields, giving him enough time to close the distance between them. He grabbed for the first guard's arm, knocking him off balance and throwing him to the ground, but the second guard reacted quickly, hitting Zaheer in the stomach and sending him flying back.

He looked up to find the guard advancing on him, fire in the palm of his hand.

"A misunderstanding, huh." the guard sneered.

Zaheer backed up, his feet struggling for purchase on the wet floor as he pulled himself up against the wall. The guard gave a sniff. "Don't try that trick again, kid."

"What trick?" Zaheer smirked, watching the water around his feet. It was quivering, almost boiling, droplets on the surface forming ripples, as if it was under a great amount of tension.

The guard shook his head, holding the fire level with Zaheer's nose. "I know you're no waterbender."

There was a noise behind Zaheer, like a river after a rainstorm, and the guard didn't bother to block as Unalaq's wave hit him in the chest, sending him tumbling away.

Unalaq skated out from the cell on a small wave, P'Li just behind him. A shock ran through Zaheer as he saw her face, her red eyes blazing, her slender shoulders squared, wrists now freed from the chains.

"How many guards?" Zaheer asked, hearing bells start to sound from the fortress above.

"Too many," she replied, her gaze following his. There were booted feet on the stairs. "We need to get out of here."

"You know another way out?"

"No," said P'Li, a glint in her eyes. "But if you get me up there, I can make one."

Zaheer nodded, and looked to Unalaq.

"This would be much easier if you were a bender," Unalaq complained, pushing his long hair from his face.

"But I'm not," said Zaheer. "So be the leaf."

Zaheer stepped forward, grabbing the wooden beams that supported the ceiling and pulling himself up.

The soldiers who came to put them down weren't looking up as they rushed down the stairs, and Zaheer dropped down as they launched their first barrage of attacks, landing squarely on one man's shoulders and bringing down both his fists like a hammer on the back of the head as Unalaq raised a shield for himself and P'Li.

The soldier went down like a sack of rice, Zaheer tumbling to his feet, finding himself once more in the midst of a group of firebenders. This time, though, he had Unalaq with him.

The disadvantage that he'd had in his fight against Unalaq was his advantage here. Unalaq had seen every move he had, most of them at least ten times, and he adjusted his bending accordingly. Each of Zaheer's high kicks was followed by a water whip to the gut, and more than once he found his leaps assisted by a wave beath his feet.

Unalaq summoned a ring of watery tendrils around the three of them to defend them against the barrage of firebending, slapping the fireballs away, and the girl made a growl of annoyance.

"Give me some room to work," she snapped, as she made her own attacks; narrow arcs of fire that started from her slender hands and ended far wide of Zaheer.

"See?" he called over his shoulder as Unalaq and P'Li followed him up the stairs, the air rich with the smell of burning. "I told you I just needed practice."

The water tribe prince sniffed. "You just got lucky again."

"The guru Pathik said there is no such thing as luck," retorted Zaheer. "Only the strength of a man's convictions."

"And it seems," said Lord Diao, as he emerged from the big door at the far end of the entrance hall, his armour shining black, his horned helm adding another head to his height. "That my conviction is tested today." He swaggered forward, not even reacting as the three of them sank into martial poses. "Step down, prince Unalaq. I have no quarrel with the northern water tribe. You are an honorable people."

Unalaq's jaw hardened as he gritted his teeth. "If you know that," he said, his voice dangerously silky. "Then you will know that we don't abandon our friends."

"Your friends? You count this thing among your friends, your highness? How long have you known her? Do you even know what she is?"

Unalaq took a step in front of her. "I know enough."

"She is a valuable military asset-" Diao started, and a rage sparked in Zaheer's stomach.

"No!" Zaheer interrupted the warlord, standing shoulder to shoulder with Unalaq. "She's not a weapon! She's a person!"

"No." P'Li's voice was hollow. "Stand aside. Both of you."

Zaheer glanced back, and a shock ran through him as he saw her face, her red eyes grabbed Unalaq's arm, dragging him to the floor behind the girl. His friend frowned at him questioning.

P'Li focused her power, light gathering in front of her forehead before it radiated out.

Diao threw himself to one side as she detonated it. The boulders she had blasted out on the mountainside were bigger than the wall behind him was thick, and the whole place shook with the impact. Zaheer went to speak, but found his ears were ringing. Diao was staggering to his feet, fiery daggers forming in his hands, and P'Li leaned forward, frowning as she unleashed her power again, three blasts in quick succession, which Diao slid and rolled through, a slight aura of flame around him as he bent the heat away from him. P'Li clearly intended to finish the fight, but she was no match for the warlord. Grabbing her around the waist, Zaheer hauled her backwards as the warlord lunged for her. Pieces of plaster and masonry fell around them like hail, and the girl looked at him, something like shock on her face. Her heart was beating so fast. Zaheer looked up, too late to dodge the fireball that the warlord sent hurtling their way, but Unalaq was there, forming a shell of bright water over them. Unalaq shouted something that Zaheer could barely make out over his ringing ears, and they scrambled for the hole in the wall that P'Li had made, the building trembling around them. Zaheer hauled P'Li out, pushing her in front of him, and Unalaq followed, leaping on a wave of ice.

Diao had burst through the barrier, and was bearing down on them. There was no way they could beat him, not in a fair fight. But it didn't need to be a fair fight. Wordlessly, Zaheer grabbed P'Li's shoulder and pointed at the roof of the fortress, already on the brink of collapse. It took her a second to understand, but she nodded, and focused her power.

He would never forget how P'Li had looked as she watched the fort fall, the flames claiming it as they must have done the ships that she had burned. The fire cast her narrow face in a strange, stark light, and her head was bleeding from where she had been shaved, but she was smiling, and her eyes were shining.

As they sailed away, Unalaq looked down at her, curled up asleep in Zaheer's coat in the bottom of the boat, and then to Zaheer, his face a little sour.

"You never told me she was beautiful."


End file.
